It's creepy to see largish bits of my skin flaking off and falling away in any case, but it's especially creepy when they show up littering the ground in lurid shades of green and red. My other tattoos have been mostly sober black lines, and the last time I ventured into color was ages ago when I'd never even heard of LITHA.
LITHA is not a new international treaty, although it probably should be. It stands for Leave It The Hell Alone, a good policy for world politics as well as tattoo aftercare. It doesn't need to be washed three times a day and it doesn't need any more puppet rulers. Don't pick at it and stop sending assassins to clean up its government. Just put a little bit of A&D on it, help it build some roads and schools, and then go sit on your hands.
In the pre-LITHA era, the red countries scabbed and oozed and cracked like mud flats after every unnecessary intervention. Since LITHA passed they've held together better, going through their rough spots but eventually emerging whole and cohesive. It's at this point that not even my impressive capacity for analogy can make this metaphor hang together. Countries don't generally peel, even if they're the Soviet Union.
Still, it's fun to leave brightly colored scraps of gossamer skin confetti behind me wherever I go. By the time it's all gone it'll be time for a new batch, a new continent to show up an uncertain greenish shade on the map and change its borders with every newscast. All is not stable in the Kingdom of Blackberry.
Posted by dianna at June 26, 2007 01:58 PM